


The Time Kaz Made An Innuendo On A Stake-Out

by KatyaMorrigan



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: F/M, Inej's laugh, Kaz being confused by feelings, Pre-Canon, accidental innuendos, early stages of the Dregs, less so confused about his feelings, more that he's confused that he even has feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:00:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27645845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatyaMorrigan/pseuds/KatyaMorrigan
Summary: Inej Ghafa isn't the kind of person to laugh freely, but when she does, it's the most beautiful sound Kaz has ever heard. Is he a little bit obsessed with getting to hear it? Potentially. Little does he know that he will be able to make her laugh like that - just not in the way he would have preferred to.
Relationships: Kaz Brekker/Inej Ghafa
Comments: 8
Kudos: 86





	The Time Kaz Made An Innuendo On A Stake-Out

**Author's Note:**

> Day 17 of my NaNoWriMo writing challenge this year - one oneshot a day, every day for the whole of November. I'm following the SOFTober 2020 prompts by @wafflesandkruge on Instagram to give me some fluffy starting points for the coming month of fics.  
> The prompt for today was "laugh".  
> I hope you enjoy!

Inej was a quietly contradictory person. She was quiet, and yet everyone listened when she was speaking. Nobody could tell when she appeared from thin air, but Kaz’s eye was always drawn to her slim presence. And that she was bright, jovial, and ready to be friendly, but rarely laughed properly. Inej’s laughter was usually polite and subtle – a side effect of her need to be amicable while in the Menagerie, Kaz presumed. But every so often Jesper or Nina would crack a ridiculous improper joke that would send Inej into a happy unrestrained laugh that sounded nothing like anything else. It drove Kaz a little bit mad.

She had been part of the gang for just over a year, and he had heard that laugh on very few occasions. It was Kaz’s own fault, he supposed; group entertainment was not his thing. Jesper, Nina, Inej, and the other Dregs would regularly spend time together in the evenings after they had gotten through a day’s work, but Kaz never joined them. He was Dirtyhands, the Bastard of the Barrel – he didn’t have time for camaraderie. They were his colleagues and nothing more, a series of alliances to lift him up the difficult slope towards bringing down Pekka Rollins. He didn’t care for them. The Crows were convenient and nothing more. But still there was that little piece of him that cooed after the thought of Inej’s laugh.

Kaz stamped on that voice inside him frequently. That was Kaz Rietveld, the podge who had led to his path to revenge, and Kaz Rietveld was useless to him. No matter how pretty Inej’s laugh was, no matter the joy on her face, it was not worth the contradiction to his persona. He could live without it.

On occasion when Inej had rallied against one of Kaz’s decisions, his responses had drawn that polite chuckle from her, and the satisfaction that he felt in amusing her just that little bit was embarrassingly prominent. He was so much like his younger self when he was around her – naïve, desperate to please, and easily fooled. Kaz shouldn’t let himself feel like this. And yet he couldn’t stop himself.

The final straw in his continued denial of this desire to hear her laugh was when he went down to the Crow Club one Friday night to see the bartender about a group of men who had been drinking there more frequently in recent weeks. Kaz suspected they were spies from another gang, but was unsure which one. He needed the bartender to keep his eye out and report back anything he could overhear from the group. As Kaz opened the door, most conversation lulled to a stop. That in itself was normal – the Bastard of the Barrel didn’t encourage comfort. But the unusual thing was the brilliant joyous laughter coming from a corner table, where Inej sat with Jesper, Nina, Dirix and Rotty. She was still laughing at something Kaz hadn’t heard as he came in, but she didn’t stop even as most of the Club fell quiet. It was the most wonderful thing he had ever heard, that unrestrained joy from the girl who was mostly silent. Kaz stopped in his tracks when he heard that, and unfortunately caught Inej’s eye as she turned to see what had caused the sudden change in tone. Her face was warm with the laughter, and her eyes were sparkling. Kaz turned on his heel and walked out again, swearing at himself as he walked back to the Slat. _Stupid, stupid Kaz Rietveld. What an idiot._

Then he and Inej were working on a mission together, as ordered by Per Haskell. Well, as much as Haskell ordered anything these days. He had been the one to create the loose bones of a plan, and Kaz had fitted it with all the useful joints. It had been pure coincidence that he needed to work with Inej, he kept telling himself. There weren’t many jobs that needed a spider, bruiser and lockpick in one go. It only made sense for him to choose Inej as his partner for this careful break-in to check for information.

The following day, Kaz and Inej were on the balcony of a disreputed house on the Geldstraat. Night had fallen some hours ago, and there was little chance they would be seen from the street. Regardless, they were both in their darkest clothing, Kaz wearing a mask over his face as well so that his pale Kerch skin couldn’t catch the rogue moonbeams. He was focused on jimmying the lock of the top floor window, which would lead them into the attic. From there, a short flight of stairs would take them onto the second floor where the office lay. It was here they were meant to go – documents had been delivered by hand earlier that day, and the other Crows had arranged that the man of the house would receive an urgent call from the other side of the city, meaning that the documents wouldn’t yet have been read. What was contained in them was still only a guess, and it was up to Kaz and Inej to find out.

“How did you get so good at picking locks?” Inej asked, her voice barely above a whisper. Kaz didn’t take his eyes away from the slim metal under his fingers.

“Practice.”

“What an eloquent answer. I mean, how did you learn?”

“I struggle to open locks when I am distracted,” he replied somewhat impatiently. Inej said nothing as Kaz continued working. Finally the thin lock fell away, and Kaz swung the window open. Inej climbed inside first, her feet making no sound as she landed on the wooden floors, and Kaz followed shortly behind. He didn’t try to replace the lock – they would be in and out before anyone noticed, and it would allow for them to have a speedier exit.

“I learnt the way anyone learns in the Barrel,” he said as they carefully made their way across the attic floor. There was a good amount of sentimental detritus stacked in the room, and it would do them no good to topple it. “Through necessity.”

“No circumstance requires lockpicking as a necessity,” Inej replied with a quirked eyebrow.

They found the narrow stairs and went down as quietly as possible. It seemed to be second nature for Inej, whose feet stayed silent even as they trod over floorboards that gave warning creaks under Kaz’s light footsteps. His bad leg was trembling with the effort of staying gentle by the time they reached the corridor below.

“You would be surprised what becomes necessity in Ketterdam,” he muttered.

They reached the office door, and once more Kaz picked the lock. This one took him barely any time – he had been replicating keys for door slots since he was a boy. Inej went in first and checked carefully for anything that might catch them out. Sensible merchers would lay flour over the top of the door that would mark intruders, or place hairs between sheets of paper to show any disturbance. But Inej’s checks brought back nothing. This would be easy work.

Kaz found the documents that had been delivered that day on the top of a large pile of wax-sealed, watermarked documents all from the same business. He opened it with his gloved hands, careful to not crease the pages in any way. There was the manifesto they had expected to see.

“What does it say?” Inej murmured, coming closer so that she could read it too. A faint wisp of her hair trailed out of her braid and tickled Kaz’s chin. He resisted the urge to brush it away.

“Whoever wrote it has awful handwriting,” he grimaced. “‘Thank you for your most geranium—generous offer, dear dire, oh, dear sire. This will be most benevolent—no, beneficial in our growing empire.’ Ghezen, if only they taught spelling better.”

Inej gave a brief chuckle. Kaz felt his chest tighten at the sound. He took a deep breath and began reading again.

“ ‘The fishes—forces of authoritative, no, authority in Ketterdam remain unaware of our power. It would be breast—I mean, best—‘”

“Breast!” Inej exclaimed in an undertone. She covered her mouth with her hands, but couldn’t stifle the sound. She was laughing, as quietly as she could, but still with the joy and lack of restraint that Jesper or Nina could make her laugh. Kaz watched as she lowered her hand and tipped her head back, her mouth curved in delight, making her cheeks swell and darken even in the half-light of the office. He found himself laughing under his breath too, mortified at his error in speaking, but too pleased that Inej was laughing to care much.

“I didn’t mean to say it!” he hissed back, but under the mask he was smiling broadly, and he knew Inej could see his chest shaking with his own laughter.

“I just heard – Kaz Brekker – say _breast!”_ Inej was stammering, taking sharp inhales between words.

Kaz tried to shush her as Inej’s laughter increased, but was giggling so much that it only exacerbated her amusement. She was so pretty, and the sound was so free of the usual burdens she carried. In that moment, Kaz may have admitted to himself that he adored her. But that voice was quickly silenced by the sound of footfall from another room.

He looked at Inej in horror, and her smile fell. Kaz threw the documents back onto the table and slipped from the room with her, caring less about being silent and more about leaving quickly.

“Who’s there?” came a woman’s voice from the other end of the corridor just as Kaz and Inej made it to the stairs. Inej went first, speedy as ever and still just as quiet, but Kaz took a little longer to go up. His leg still wasn’t quite right, and he had to lift it by hand a few times to make the climb.

As soon as they reached the attic room. Inej closed the door behind them and pushed a narrow book under the gap between carpet and door frame, creating a temporary stopper.

“Do you still have the lock?” she panted frantically as she climbed out of the window.

“Yes, I can do it, just get out and get down.”

“I’ll wait for you, you need help getting down.”

“I’ll manage, get out of here.”

“No.”

Kaz gave a sigh of frustration as he scrambled out of the window onto the balcony once more. He fixed the lock back into place, a little clumsily, and turned to see Inej disappear over the side of the roof.

“There’s a rope pulley,” came her whispered voice from below. “Push your leg through that and I’ll winch you down.”

Kaz did so, and the weight of his body carried him down to the street below. Inej was nowhere to be seen, and he turned quickly to try and spot her dark slim frame somewhere around the front of the house. There was a faint whooshing noise, and she appeared beside him.

“You used yourself as a counterbalance?” he asked. She nodded.

Together they ran back in the direction of the Slat, Kaz using his cane as much as possible.

“I can’t wait to tell Jesper you said breast,” Inej said with a delighted voice. Kaz turned to look at her and saw a mischievous grin on her face.

“You tell him that, and I’ll—”

“Your threats don’t scare me, Brekker,” she replied. “You need a good spider, and I’m your best. Or should I say—”

“—Don’t say it—”

_“—Breast.”_

Kaz sighed to himself as Inej giggled again, a faint return of the laughter he had so sought out. All he could think about was the annoying hubbub that this would cause when Inej told the others about his slip of the tongue. But then the creeping thought of before returned – that actually, he didn’t mind Inej talking about him. In fact, he rather liked it. Kaz had made Inej Ghafa laugh that beautiful, free laugh. And that was worth a lot more than the dip in his reputation that it would bring.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, not super happy with how this one turned out, but it exists now. Maybe I'll rewrite the concept into one I like a little better at some point, but hey. I hope this works.
> 
> Tomorrow's prompt is "ice", and will be a fic inspired by Loveless, by Alice Oseman, because I have decided to become the sole writer for this very small fandom.


End file.
